Saturday night! I’ve been meaning to blog about this, for I think it demonstrates an original formula for the classic night in: two nights in one, sliding down the formality scale from wine to ice-cream as you do it. Perfect 
So, I shared a few glasses with the well-attired Andrew (making his exciting first visual appearance on this blog) Matt and Caroline from Themes and Sources, before Oliver, Abi and I rewarded ourselves for our pleasing mock exam results with Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough. The plan was to watch Doctor Who – an excellent episode, by the way – but this was scuppered by the iPlayer so we went with Child Of Our Time instead. Still, twas lovely!
Recipe for success: wine…
…and then ice-cream
Talking of Who – the news that Steven Moffat will succeed Russell T Davies as executive producer made my little fanboy heart jump for joy. Steven Moffat! He wrote, like, all the best episodes! And I’ll always be eternally grateful to RTD for bringing the series back to television and doing it as such a wholesome triumph to boot. 
I shall shortly return to much-needed work, which this week is on education which is rather brilliant, and doubly so for giving me quotes such as “there are decreasing returns to selectivity for the able and large returns to mixing for the least able. Society at large benefits from mixed-school communities and teaching.” Told you so, society 
Can we have our comprehensive future now, please?
And finally: at a time when it’s very difficult to find good news about the state of the government, I am genuinely proud of what is being achieved tonight with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. By the time I had dinner tonight the moves to block hybrid embryos had already been defeated, but there was still some question over whether IVF would continue to discriminate against lesbian and single mothers in its ‘need for a father’ and – of course – over abortion, which was worrying us. At time of writing, thankfully, the IVF amendment has also been defeated and it’s only abortion which remains an open question: I very much hope we get a clean sweep tonight and reject attempts to lower the 24 week limit. Not because I think 24 weeks is a magic number, naturally, but the medical evidence doesn’t seem to suggest any advance from the previous reduction from 28 weeks, and so any further cut could be a dangerous step in the power of those who ultimately seek to curtail the right to abortion drastically. We’ll see.
Right, this needs to be blogged: Sainsbury’s have a serious attitude problem when it comes to alcohol and ID. (Gosh, I feel like Nic writing this!) They’re going way beyond what the law requires, and it’s ridiculous. Here’s the sob story…
After dinner, a group of us headed to a branch of the popular supermarket chain to do a quick bit of emergency shopping. I was after some orange juice, biscuits, milk… that kind of thing. Maybe even a pizza for lunch. It wasn’t exciting. At the checkout, I stand ready to pack my reusable bag (saving the planet, see) with these mundane items when the checkout lady spots a few bottles of beer and asks if I have any ID. ID? What? No? 
“Oh, that’s mine!” says Oliver cheerily as he takes out his proof of age. Great, let’s get going… except no. “I still need to see your ID” the woman says to me insistently. By this point she has resumed scanning, so a pile of goods is building up by the bag which I would be packing if I wasn’t standing there in a confused state. “But I’m not buying any alcohol!” “It doesn’t matter, he is.” “But he’s not with me! He’s doing his own shopping! We’re paying separately!” It won’t wash.
Trying the ‘just ignore her’ approach, I resume trying to pack but am very behind by this point. “Need any help?” asks Owen, who’s waiting for us having sped through a separate checkout, and starts helping me back. “I need ID from you too!” she shouts, accusingly. What? What?!
It turns out that Owen is now part of our ‘group’, and every single person in the group must now produce ID in order for Oliver to buy his own beer with his own ID. Abi and Joe are quickly recruited too, by dint of standing too close or conversing. Trying to negotiate, we offer our Cambridge student cards. Bearing our date of birth and photo, it’s pretty clear we’re all old enough to hypothetically buy the alcohol which we weren’t even trying to buy. But no, that’s not good enough. No, Oliver’s beer must be left behind.
How on earth did they come up with that? Does that mean that a mother or father can’t buy alcohol if their children happen to be with them? Why are we arbitrarily deemed to be a ‘group’ when we’re clearly all making separate purchases and just happen to be together? If we had just gone to separate checkouts, surely we would have defeated this system? What purpose does it serve anyway? Why doesn’t Sainsbury’s understand the most basic concepts of legal liability? How warped an attitude to alcohol are we going to have in this country? Why was I allowed to buy alcohol in the Willesden branch of Sainsbury’s without even being checked for ID myself?
Grrr.
Anyway, so that’s that. In-between being checked for ID for the right to talk to my friends in a supermarket queue, I actually spent my day being rather productive, writing my essay on twentieth century crime rates and watching The Apprentice alongside Abi. (You need to watch that in a group, really. It’s a programme designed for bitchy comments.)
Oh, and for next week’s Themes and Sources class the ‘surprise assignment’ turned out to be the fairly obvious one. Design your own utopia. In a group. Which is really silly, because utopias – indeed any social engineering from scratch project – is entirely pointless, but utopian planning by committee is taking it to another level. If only I was a Communist, this would be a hell of a lot easier…
One thing, however, is for sure. There will be no Sainsbury’s in my utopia.
Aha, the sun is gloriously wonderful isn’t it? I mean, I know I go on about being a winter person because I enjoy stomping around in a Lenin coat, but when the warm summer days actually arrive and you can spend your days lying and chatting on the grass of the Harvey Court gardens it’s hard to feel aggrieved. It’s probably doing wonders for my food budgeting, too, given as it’s so much easier to just forget meals in the summer.*
So… blogging material. Don’t have much, to be honest! The lack of exams (sorry everyone else) is giving the term a mightily relaxed feel. Although on the subject of exams, I do want to officially – because everything I write here is clearly ‘official’ – wish the best of luck to everyone about to do GCSEs. AS and A2 too, of course, but I’m thinking of Natasha in particular here Good luck!
*Eating three meals a day is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and can in no way be made up with biscuits, kids.
Swift work made of a Boris poster
Well, as expected, the elections were awful. A wipeout of Labour nationally, a resurgent Tory party riding high, but worst of all (to me) is Ken losing to Boris. I have such a keen sense of the last great survivor who we’ve lost. At least with no chance to screw up a third term we can step back and admire what he did for London – and there’s a lot that Boris owes to him, because he was London’s first mayor and made the job what it is. Independent of New Labour, the number of people who showed up on Thursday to support him prove that he was one of a kind, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll see another like him. One day.
And worse that Boris – much, much worse – is the fact that the BNP candidate won a seat on the Assembly. Powerless, sure, but what a symbol: a great world city elected a nasty man from a viciously racist party as one of its representatives. It certainly makes Boris looks harmless in comparison, I suppose, and we should give him the benefit of the doubt now. He won the election fair and square – though with a little help from the wretched Standard – and I hope he makes the best of it.
Anyway… I’ve bought myself a new phone as a treat of distraction and Lucy came to visit, which was lovely! We had a mini-picnic with Joe, Sophie and a duck (with little ducky feet) this afternoon; Sophie, this photo’s for you!
Come to us, duck!
Stay strong, London. We’ll get through this 
(Oh, and congrats to Brent & Harrow for bucking the trend! Knew my homeland would come through!)
As this post publishes the polls in the London mayoral elections will have just closed, so if the tone is a bit defeatist at least this is coming out safely after every last vote has been cast! Hopefully tomorrow evening will have a surprise to celebrate about, but who can say…? Thanks to everyone who tried to stop him!
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
